For a small business, marketing can’t always be a high priority. Oftentimes, marketing will fall to someone hired to perform another duty entirely. As a small business, marketing doesn’t have to be a huge department with an enormous budget to be effective. Avoid these 5 mistakes and you’ll be off to a good start.
Marketing mistakes to avoid:
Winging it
Create a strategy, don’t just wing it. Because for many small businseses, marketing can come as an afterthought, there often isn’t a strategy built around marketing. This is a mistake for small businesses because without a strategy, you may let your marketing efforts slip. With a strategy, you’ll know how many pieces of collateral you need to create each quarter, each month, and each week to keep your marketing efforts consistent. This includes a mobile-ready website, regular blogging, social media strategy, and a strategy for creating any other pieces of collateral you may need. Give yourself the best chance by looking at your data to create your strategy.
Limiting your Toolset
If you’re asking, “which tool should I use, content marketing, email campaigns, social media ads, Google Adwords, SEO, or Google Analytics?” The answer is simply this – you need to use as many of them as you can.
Limiting your technology stack will only limit your marketing reach. You need to employ as many tools as you can to reach you audience in the right way at the right time.
Using all Social Sites
Unlike toolsets, not all social media sites will be right for your business. Those whose content really resonates on LinkedIn might not be successful or Pinterst or Snapchat. Choosing the right platforms for you and focusing your efforts is important. All you have to do is figure out where you target audience spends the most time online. Is it Reddit, Google+, Instagram? Whatever that site is, create impactful and high quality content for that site.
Forgetting the Customer
Your strategy, your toolset, and your social sites should all be centered around one thing – your customer. What content do they want to see? How often do they want to see it? What sites are they visiting? As you make your strategy, you should consider all of these details to be an effective marketing machine. Personalization has become quite the trend in marketing
Outdated Content and Website
If your website is outdated, it could hurt your brand and your reputation. No one wants to go on a website just to see that it hasn’t been updated for a year and a half. When your site is update, people know you’re in business and in the know. As for the content you share, stay on the pulse to be as relevant as possible. If not, your audience will lose interest and not listen to what you have to say. Building trust through your content and your website goes a long way.
As a small business, your marketing doesn’t have much room for error. If you want to learn more about how to improve your marketing, download our Chief Marketing Officer handbook.
